Baidu’s market value fell by $2.4 billion after the CEO absents the key meeting of Chinese President Xi Jinping-Alibaba Gr Hldgs (NYSE:BABA), BAIDU (NASDAQ:BIDU).

Hong Kong listed shares on Monday Baidu Bydu The promise of $2.4 billion was deducted from the company’s market value, thus eliminating $2.4 billion. The sharp decline fell after the company’s obvious absence in a key meeting between the founders and the president. xi jinping.

what happened: President XI held a meeting with China’s top business leaders in Beijing, including Alibaba dad Founder Jack Horse With Huawei Ren Zhengfei. However, Reuters reported that Baidu’s founder, Robin Leenot at the meeting. The meeting with XI was considered a sign of the government’s support for China’s technology sector amid years of regulatory scrutiny and uncertain U.S. relations.

Meanwhile, Baidu announced on Sunday that it plans to integrate DeepSeek and its proprietary Ernie Big Speech Model (LLMS) into its search engine to provide competitors’ search experiences to provide more diverse search experiences Tencent tcehy State that they will integrate DeepSeek’s AI model into WeChat search.

See: XI Jinping and Jack MA’s upcoming “clear message” of Beijing-backed, soaring in Hong Kong before revenue

Why it matters: Last week, Baidu’s stock surged nearly 12%, an excitement about China’s advancement in AI and early launch DeepSeek R1. The company seized the moment, launching an upgraded version of its Ernie AI robot and revealing plans to open up the AI ​​model. Recent losses are mainly attributed to profits after AI-powered gatherings. The company also plans to release its fourth-quarter earnings on February 18.

However, Li’s absence has led to speculation about Baidu’s impact on the market’s decline. The company has been working to reduce advertising revenue, while its cloud division has expanded its AI products in limited growth over the past two years.

Baidu’s recent stock market results are a broader context in which the company remains competitive in the AI ​​market. Baidu is preparing to launch its next-generation AI model, Ernie 5.0, later this year to compete with new entrants like DeepSeek.

Furthermore, despite the cost-effective AI models like DeepSeek, Baidu’s CEO stressed the importance of ongoing investment in AI. At the World Government Summit in Dubai, Robin Li emphasized the need for more investment to develop smarter models.

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Disclaimer: The content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.